Mine, page 13
Like the killer had done it a time or two.
Given the angle of the image, she was guessing it had been taken by a cell phone, and she wondered whether it was Rehv’s or from one of the Brothers who’d shown up to deal with the mess she’d created.
V glanced up at her. “You want to go on to the next?”
She nodded in a numb way, and after a series of screen changes, they were back at the first table. This time, she could speed-read, and a riding anxiety made her remember every single word. When she got to the end, she let out a deep breath.
“I want to see the picture.”
“Roger that.”
The second victim was much the same. Club clothes, this time lying on his stomach, but the head was turned to the side so that the sockets were staring off at the back exit of some brick building.
“So you’ve decided to play Equalizer, huh?” V remarked.
It was the same story. A male with a history of extreme violence, multiple complaints from people inside his bloodline and outside of it, who was clearly a danger to vampires and humans alike.
“Don’t pat me on the back.” She returned and sat with John Matthew. “Not at all.”
Goddamn it, she didn’t remember ever seeing the males before. “What about a picture from last night?”
“I don’t have one yet.”
John Matthew put his palm on her back and rubbed her shoulders. She didn’t want to look at him, except when she finally did, his face was grave, but not hiding disgust or anything. He was as he always had been, blue-eyed, dark-haired, strong-jawed—steady. At her six. No matter what.
“So I’ve got a question for you,” the Brother said over at the desk. “What the fuck’s going on?”
All she could do was shake her head. Back in the spring, she’d been so sure that when her nightmares had stopped—all that waking up on the attack, John having to hold her back, hold her down—she’d turned a corner in a good way, taken a positive step toward the kind of mental health that had always been out of reach for her, no matter how good things were going. Hell, even her aggression had improved at the club. She’d been proud of how much better she’d been tolerating the stupid—
Your grid is collapsing.
“I need a favor,” she heard herself say to Vishous. “I need… your help at sundown.”
SIXTEEN
THE HOSPITAL SMELL was what brought him around.
Later, Gus would amend things into something romantic, but the truth of it was… that signature antiseptic-behind-the-fake-Florida scent was the trailhead he followed out of his darkness. At first, he hadn’t been able to track what had kindled his consciousness. One moment he was lights-out; the next, he had some awareness, his brain’s neuropathways starting to cough up a couple of signals.
And then he recognized the telltale hospital fragrance. Citrus II Germicidal Deodorizing Cleaner.
Which, according to the label—that he was somehow able to visualize—met the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s blood-borne pathogen standards for HIV, HBC, HCV, and HAV…—
Wait… what was he thinking about? Lemons…?
As his body floated along in a buffered state of numbness, his mind was like a kitten with a ball of string, batting back and forth with the smell thing, the label thing, and the intersections both had with his past. Except where was he in his own timeline? Was he in med school? First year during gross human anatomy? Or no… third and fourth year during core rotations when he was actually in a hospital, making rounds of the different departments even though he’d decided when he was ten years old he was going to be an oncologist…
How about residency at MGH? Or no, fellowship there? Or when he was a working doctor and a researcher in a lab, teasing out the molecular successes and failures of weaponizing the human immune system against rogue cells, the official names of which all ended in -oma.
Or was it more recently, when he—
As if the cognitive sifting was the choke to Gus’s internal engine, his eyes flipped open. Not that he got much from the lid lift. Everything was bright and blurry, like he was in a cloud. Was this Heaven in the Hallmark sense?
Beeping. Behind him.
Oh, he knew that sound. A heartbeat, nice and steady, if a little slow.
So this had to be Earth, and he was the patient, wasn’t he? Had he been in a car accident or a—
A blurry face appeared in the indistinct visual soup, and he recognized who it was because of the crop of blond hair. And then came a voice. The voice.
Her voice.
Catherine Phillips Phalen said roughly, “Oh, my God… you’re alive.”
“Gus is the name,” he croaked. “Not God. God’s more of… a job description.”
There was a pause. Then a chuckle. Then something soft and warm, a drop, hit his cheek. A tear? Was it hers… was it his…
“You really are back,” she whispered.
“Where… ’d… I go?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Feel… shit.”
“Yes, I would imagine you do.”
As much as he wanted to communicate, the conversation was pulling too much energy away from him, his lids drifting back down, his breathing suddenly feeling laborious.
“Don’t know… happened.”
“You’re safe,” she said. “That’s all you need to think about right now.”
“Missed you…”
There was another pause, and the image of the great C.P. Phalen, in one of her sleek power suits and those fucking high heels that made her legs long as a mile, was as clear as if she were standing in front of him and he was up-on-his-Converse-high-tops and a-okay.
He needed to stop talking—
“I missed you, too…” Something brushed his forehead. Her hand? Please let it be her hand. “Don’t leave me again.”
Had he left her? He couldn’t remember. But he knew one thing. There was pain in that steely voice of hers… so much pain.
“Okay,” he replied to the statement that was really a question. “I won’t, Cathy.”
* * *
As Cathy pulled a Kleenex free of a box on the bedside table, she wiped her eyes and reflected on how much she had always hated that name.
Recently, however, she had embraced the honesty that came with it. She had been born in the middle class and had never been anything fancy growing up; so when it had become time to reinvent herself, she had clothed her modest origins in the mantle of Catherine—or even better, the androgyny of her initials, C.P. But now, especially coming out of the mouth it did?
She was ready to get the five letters tattooed on her forehead.
Wadding up the tissue in a fistful of relief, she wanted to touch Gus all over to reassure herself he was alive for real—as if, were she to confirm the warmth of him, it was a predicator that he would stay with her. But that was magical thinking, for one thing. And then there was the horrifying reality that there was almost no part of him that wasn’t bruised.
Taking what she could get, she satisfied herself with brushing his temple, his jawline, the lobe of his ear. She told herself he liked her touch. She didn’t know whether that was true.
As Gus stayed quiet, his mouth parted and he breathed shallowly. He was clearly drifting off again, and she had a spear of fear that this was it, the final surge of life before he passed. Weren’t things always most vivid right before death? She had read that somewhere. That the mortally wounded, the mortally diseased, had a second wind right before the grave came for them.
Would she have one? she wondered. Would he be there for her when she did?
Trying to find solace in the monitoring machine’s steady rhythm and lack of alarms, she reminded herself that they were surrounded—literally—by doctors and nurses. All she had to do was open that door and shout down the hall to that great open area of workstations.
The cavalry would come running—
The knock was quiet, and she didn’t look away from Gus’s face as she answered it with a Come in. Out of the corner of her eye, two people registered as they entered, but she was too consumed by the eyelashes that curled up tightly from Gus’s shut lids.
Also, she was willing him to reopen his eyes.
“Did he wake up or something?”
At the astonished male voice, she jerked to attention. “Oh… hello. Welcome.”
As if she were a greeter at Home Depot.
Daniel and Lydia were standing at the foot of the bed, all kinds of shock showing on their faces—this time, for a good reason.
“Yes, he’s back,” Cathy said to the person they all cared so much for. “Aren’t you, Gus. Gus?”
When he didn’t respond, toxic terror clawed her in the throat—but then his head nodded up and down on the flat pillow.
Daniel said something. Lydia said something. But the syllables bled into a sound salad she didn’t bother sorting into its components…
She was not a God person. The whole Christian tradition she’d been raised in hadn’t survived her eighteen-year-old emancipation as she’d left that small town for college, and the further and further into the sciences and pharmaceutical business she’d gotten, the more and more of a secularist she’d become.
Yet as her eyes roamed around Gus’s misshapen face, she found herself thanking… someone up above. The fact that he was alive after what had been done to him?
Miracles go… and miracles come. Back.
As her hand went to her lower abdomen, the hollow loss was in her uterus, and in her heart, profound and deep as any void in the galaxy. But there was a rejuvenation, too. A lifting of the spirit that came when life, previously thought of as unrelentingly unfair, proved that there was more balance than one had assumed. Straddling the two extremes of hope and mourning was a split of emotions that consumed her, and maybe that was why she was thinking about God. Believing in some guy in a white robe standing in a set of pearly gates was easier to handle.
Easier to reconcile.
“When?” Lydia asked. “When did he come around?”
“Just a minute ago.” Cathy touched the top arch of his Afro. There was debris in it and she wanted to wash his hair for him. “And only for a moment, but he’s in here. He’s still with us.”
In the back of her mind, some kind of ringer went off—and glancing over at the couple, she focused on Daniel. She had something she needed to tell… one of them. She looked at Lydia. Or was it both of them?
“Ah…”
As she just stared stupidly, Daniel frowned. “You want me to go get a doctor?”
“He is one.” Cathy went back to focusing on the bed. “He’s the best doctor.”
Then again, it was entirely possible that if the guy had talked about a plumber, she’d have maintained that Gus was an expert at PVC pipe installation. Electrician? In the union. Librarian? Worked in the congressional one.
“Is there anything we can get you?”
She lost track of who was talking, but then one of them said it was time to go—
“Wait,” she heard herself interrupt.
When the couple looked at her with concern—like they were both thinking of hitting the call button on her behalf—she put her hand to the side of her head. And then… she remembered.
“Will you stay with him for a minute?” she asked the wolven. “Please?”
By way of answer, Lydia pulled a chair up and sat right down like she was prepared to wait out a century if that’s what was required.
“Thank you,” Cathy said.
“Anything. For him… for you.”
Cathy put her hand over her heart. And then she indicated the door with an incline of her head, and Daniel followed her out, the panel closing behind them. The hall they were in was private—in the sense that there was no one in it. But percolating down from the open area, there was all kinds of talking and walking across the concrete floors. Phones ringing. Machines whirring.
The lab was very much alive. For now.
Like her. Like Daniel.
The financial engine that kept it going was nearly out of gas, however. The money was nearly all gone, and she supposed it was a sign of personal growth that she wasn’t worried about that anymore. Or maybe she was just admitting failure.
“This way,” she said.
She led him farther down the corridor, and when she got to the last door on the left, she put her hand on the cool panel and stopped.
“You stroking out on me?”
Cathy glanced over her shoulder. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think.”
“True. But considering how many people are hanging by a thread around here, can you blame me?”
“No.”
Opening the door, she felt her breath get caught, and between one blink and the next, she saw the office not as it was now, empty of all personal effects, but rather as it had been, with Gus’s basketball jerseys and sports memorabilia.
Funny, how his things had been windows that looked into a vista she loved. Without them, the space was claustrophobic with its generic furniture and bare walls.
“He really did leave,” Daniel commented.
“But he’s back now.” Feeling the need to rush, she went across and opened one of the side drawers of the desk. “Oh, good.”
“Huh?”
Feeling foolish, she held up a Rubik’s Cube. “He, ah, he left this behind. The cleaning staff found it in the corner over there. It was the only thing he left behind and I saved it for him.”
She stopped herself there because it was kind of a lie. She had been the one to find the toy, but admitting she’d come down here and sat in his chair, and wrapped his fleece around herself, and idly gone through the empty desk, was an admission she preferred to keep to herself.
Daniel’s stare dropped to the colorful cube, with its patchwork of primary colors. “I never could do those things. Can’t play chess, either.”
“You’re good at a lot of other things.”
He shrugged. “So what’s up, Phalen.”
“I wanted you to know that the entire facility, aboveground and below, is on lockdown.” She idly twisted the levels, the reds, blues, greens, and yellows, shifting around, trading places yet not aligning. “No pass cards, no codes. Entrance granted on a case-by-case basis by guard staff, which I’ve doubled. And before you ask, all of the men on the shifts have worked for me for the last five years. If they were part of the abduction, they would have struck by now.”
“You sure about that.”
“At this point, as sure as I can be about anything.”
“What else is on your mind.”
“Nothing—”
“Bullshit. If you only had to tell me about the security, you could have done it right outside that room. So why are we down here.”
After a moment, she put the cube on the desktop, lowered her chin, and stared out from under her brows. “If you insist on accurately guessing my secrets, I may have to break off our friendship.”
Daniel chuckled. “You’re tougher than that.”
“Yes. I am.” Unleashing the hatred she’d been sucking down into her chest, she said in a low voice, “We are going to get this taken care of, you and me.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“You know what I am saying, Daniel Joseph.”
“Yeah, maybe.” That cane was lifted up, as if he were reminding her of it. “You got a staff full of guards who don’t have stage-four lung cancer. Why me?”
“Two reasons.” With a steady hand, she tapped the toy. “You care about Gus more than they do. And I can trust you in ways I can’t them.”
“I thought you said that everyone’s worked for you for five years, blah, blah, blah.”
“I did. But this is… different. This is personal to me.”
In the silence that followed, Daniel’s eyes shifted to the Rubik’s Cube. As an expression of calculation sharpened his features, he nodded to himself—as if he’d come up with an idea he thought was a good one.
“Fair enough,” he murmured. “I accept the assignment, even if it kills me.”
Cathy extended her palm. “I can pay you.”
Worse came to worst, she could sell one of her paintings. Or some of those sculptures in her foyer.
“Nah. This is pro bono. ’Cuz I owe Gus—and because I’d decided to go after the fucker who did this anyway.”
As Daniel shook what was offered, his eyes gleamed with a darkness that might have scared even her—if she hadn’t wanted to see exactly that kind of banked aggression. And this was why she needed Daniel. He was a dying man with nothing to lose, and this would be his final act.
People did their best work when it was their legacy—and as a secondary benefit, she had the sense the purpose would keep him alive a little longer.
When they released their grips, Daniel said, “I do have a favor to ask.”
Cathy looked toward the door. “Yes, of course. I will take care of her for however long I have.”
Daniel closed his eyes. Then he squeezed Cathy’s shoulder, put the business end of his cane back on the floor, and hobbled out.
As the door eased shut behind him, Cathy glanced around. Then she walked over to the smooth Sheetrock of the wall and touched a solitary picture-hanging hook that had been left behind.
She wanted those framed jerseys back where they’d been.
And the man who owned them back at the desk.
And in her life.
“What do you say, God,” she murmured. “What do I have to do to get a prayer answered…”
SEVENTEEN
AS BLADE GLIDED along the underground polished-stone corridors of the symphath colony, he had the hood up on his red robing. With his arms linked over his pecs and his leather slip shoes making no sound, he imagined himself as nothing but a chromatic shadow in the candlelight, a pattern without substance, a transparency the color of an apple.
